‘The Wasteland’ grabs award at Tromsø filmfest

Iranian movie ‘The Wasteland’ has won an award at the Tromsø International Film Festival in Norway.

The 102-minute movie, directed by Ahmad Bahrami and produced by Saeed Bashiri, grabbed the peace award (NoPFA) at the 2022 edition of the event.

Set in a remote factory producing bricks in an ancient way, many families with different ethnicities work in the factory and the boss seems to hold the key to solving their problems.

Forty-year-old Lotfollah, who has been born on-site, is the factory supervisor and acts as a go-between for the workers and the boss.

The boss asks Lotfollah to gather all the workers in front of his office to talk with them about the shutdown of the factory.

Now, the only issue that has occupied Lotfollah’s mind is to keep Sarvar, the woman he has been in love with for a long time, unharmed.

The cast list of the film includes Ali Baqeri, Farrokh Nemati, Mehdi Nassaj, Majid Farhang, and Mahdieh Nassaj.

‘The Wasteland’ received the best film awards at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Nouvelles Images Persanes Festival in France.

The movie also won the best cinematography award at the Asian Film Awards, the Best Film Audience Award (Premio Radiónica de la juventud) at the Bogota International Film Festival in Colombia, as well as the Best Film Award, FIPRESCI Award, and FAI Foundation Award at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy.

‘The Wasteland’ was selected among the 25 Best Asian Films of 2020 by the Asian Movie Pulse website and won Wild Dreamer Award for Best Feature Film at the Subversive International Film Festival in Croatia.

It also went on screen at global events such as the Stockholm International Film Festival in Sweden, the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia, the Silk Road International Film Festival in China, and the New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland.

The 32nd edition of the Tromsø International Film Festival will be held on January 17-23, 2022.

FM/FM